Penn references all over his episode of “The Goldbergs” (Videos)

While we never saw it in “Everybody Loves Raymond”, it was only a matter of time until TV writer Lew Schneider (C’83, Mask and Wig, Friars) got some Penn references into another show he’s been working on.

If you watched his show “The Goldbergs” last week (episode 117 “Lame Gretzky”), you would have seen that one of the storylines had the mother Beverly trying to sabotage her daughter Erica from doing “too” well on the SATs …so that Erica could go to Penn (instead of Stanford) and only be 20 minutes away from home.

It was quite the torquelent episode and it’s left me bumgubbled. To understand what I’m talking about, watch the clip below where Erica teaches her mother Beverly a lesson after Beverly tried to sabotage her SAT score (more Penn mentions in clip):

Since the show takes place in the 1980s, I bet she was was submitting page 217.

On a related note, four episodes ago (ep. 113 “The Other Smother”), the show opened up at a career fair in the family’s hometown of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania where different local colleges, including Drexel had tables, …yet there was no Penn presence! I asked Lew about it and he shared the following:

“Okay, well, here’s one thing: I really have to restrain myself sometimes when it comes to Penn. I think it’s great and all and I’m thrilled that I went there, especially there’s no way in hell I could get in now. So anyway…”The Goldbergs” is set in the Philadelphia area and one of the kids in the show, the older sister Erica is supposed to be a junior in high school and really smart and kind of constantly embarrassed by/fed up with her crazy family, so naturally any time we talk about where she might be thinking of going to college, I think that Penn should at least be in the discussion.

Since I’m working on the set full time, and not in the writers room as I used to, I don’t get to put in my two cents at the story stage of the scripts the way I do when we’re just in pre-production; this became relevant (as far as this piece goes) earlier this year we did an episode where Beverly, the mother character, gets competitive with another mom whose kids are super talented, one of whom is going to Yale (see clip above). As the two moms face off, Erica seems to be interested in a great school in Philly and that school is… you guessed it…Drexel. Drexel?! What the hell? I almost argued but I was super busy and didn’t want to seem snobby so I kept it to myself. I also reasoned that it was a very brief moment on screen and that Penn would get a better shot later on. My restraint paid off in the episode that just aired.”

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